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This seminar explores the laws and legal practices of six ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Egypt, the Hittite Empire, Israel, Greece and Rome. This page contains a full course description, a list of required readings and hyperlinks.

This seminar will introduce students to the very beginnings of Western legal history.
Through a comparative examination of the legal systems and practices of ancient
Mesopotamia (including Hammurabi's Babylon, c. 1700 B.C.), ancient Egypt, ancient
Israel, ancient Anatolia (the Hittite Empire, c. 1500 B.C.), ancient Greece and ancient
Rome, we will investigate the historical origins of "law" as an idea. We will see how
each of these societies created law in the image of its own beliefs and needs. We
will look at what differentiated the resulting legal systems, and what united them.
We will examine not merely the ancient "law in the books" (the formal written codes
that have received so much historical and philological attention over the years) but
also the ancient "law in action" (the performances, rituals and ceremonies that
created legal rights and duties in all these proto-literate societies). We will look at
some of the earliest surviving trial records. Throughout the seminar, emphasis will
be placed on developing a broad interdisciplinary perspective on the ancient legal
cultures examined; readings will be drawn not only from the fields of law and history,
but also from religion, anthropology, archaeology, literature and communication
studies. Evaluation will be based on a paper and a class presentation. Enrollment
limited to 12 students.

Listed below are the required readings on the legal cultures of each of the six ancient civilizations studied in this course.